This is random people reinforcing the main characters or the opponents for the final battle, for no apparent reason other than to increase the magnitude of the fight. It is a less predictable version of The Cavalry or just about any Deus ex Machina.
In a streetfight or Escalating Brawl, it can take the form of thugs and random quarrelers joining both sides of the fight just because, often not even knowing the reasons of the brawl or what is actually happening, and with the sole intention to break further mayhem.
If all the people are called rather than showing up for no reason, it becomes Gondor Calls for Aid. Compare Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting, which is when the fight starts out as a free-for-all.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- While much of the final battle between the demons led by Satan, and the Devilmen led by Akira goes unshown in Devilman, DEVILMAN crybaby shows this in detail, as during Akira's climactic fight against Satan, several of Akira's Devilman Army are shown joining the fight to give their lives to merge with Akira's body, at one point granting him a Megaton Punch that sends Satan flying halfway across the Earth! It unfortunately doesn't pay off.
- The Whitebeard War was heading this way in One Piece. Every single Marine who ever appeared in the comic was there, plus a ton more. A bunch of New World pirate captains. The surviving male members of Baroque Works. Buggy the Clown. A small army of escaped prisoners and transvestites. Blackbeard and crew. However, it wasn't until Shanks and Trafalgar Law showed up that this really proved to be the case.
- The end of the second season of Vandread featured lots of people coming to Nirvana's aid against the Earthling(s). Although this wasn't really expected, it has been justified by all of them coming from planets where Nirvana's crew did something good or otherwise impressed the locals over the course of the two seasons.
- Indirect version in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. During the final battle with the Antispiral, after a wormhole or something opens up to Earth, every single human being on Earth is seen believing in Team Dai-Gurren to take down the Antispiral. Remember, Spiral Power comes from belief and determination, both of which the entire population is supplying Simon and co. with.
Comic Books
- Marvel's "What If?" #34 (first series, an all-humor issue) had "What if everyone who had been an Avenger remained an Avenger?"
Film — Live-Action
- At the end of Avengers: Endgame, Thanos is about to throw the entire weight of his army against the small team of Avengers when everyone they had ever fought with shows up to reinforce them. Reading between the lines suggests that Gondor Calls for Aid could have happened offscreen,note but it still pushes suspension of disbelief that three whole armies (the Wakandan and Asgardian militaries and the Ravagers) could muster so quickly.
- The last scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur's small band of knights suddenly becomes a huge army.
- Subverted in The Matrix Revolutions, wherein the 9 BILLION copies Agent Smith made of himself just stand around and watch Smith 1.0 and Neo fight.
- In Casino Royale (1967), everyone from the British army to Cowboys and Indians show up for the last battle.
- Similarly, the brawl at the end of Blazing Saddles is between all the bad guys and all the townsfolk and spills out into adjacent studios. A baker shows up in the studio commissary and hands out custard pies to the brawlers "for the big pie fight", even though he'd had no idea of knowing there was going to be a fight of any kind.
- In the climax of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Dimitri shoots at Zero and Gustave from one balcony inside the titular hotel. A random hotel patron steps out of his room with a gun and fires back, to be joined by several more on each side, and within seconds the entire room is a mess of chaos and gunfire as a dozen random combatants fire back and forth at each other for no particular reason without hitting a damn thing.
- The Blues Brothers, Inverted. While the police have been chasing Jake and Elwood for the whole film, at the climax, hundreds of police men, SWAT team, soldiers, tanks, and helicopters show up out of nowhere in downtown Chicago to apprehend two unarmed men.
- Parodied in both Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues with the "Battle of the News Networks", both of which consist of random news teams (and, in the second, supernatural entities) coming out of nowhere to join in the battle.
Literature
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - everybody and their dog shows up for the Battle of Hogwarts. Possibly overlaps into Gondor Calls for Aid, since a lot of the people who showed up were called upon to be reinforcements. It turns out that Slughorn who seemingly retreated out of cowardice, only made sure to evacuate his underage students before leaving to rally a sufficiently sized army to fight the Death Eaters, even calling in allies as far out as Romania-based Charlie Weasley. It works, and ultimately the Death Eaters fold under sheer force of numbers and Voldemort is left as the last man standing of his entire army before Harry even reveals himself to challenge him.
- Diana Wynne Jones actually does this a lot in many of her books; Howl's Moving Castle is probably the best known.
- The Battle of Five Armies in The Hobbit. First, the dwarves and the men are about to start a battle. Then the wood elves show up with their own claims/demands (but these are largely compatible with those of the men, so it's still essentially 13 dwarves vs. men and elves). Then Thorin's cousin Dáin from the Iron Hills arrives with a proper dwarf army at his back. After a very small amount of that they all at least temporarily put aside their differences to fight the goblins. The eagles appeared later and started doing a Death from Above thing on the goblins.
- Of course, the real Game-Breaker here was Beorn, who showed up at the last hour and pretty much singlehandedly destroyed half the goblin army.
Live-Action TV
- The Book of Boba Fett: The final episodes see every heroic character introduced on Tatooine in the show as well as The Mandalorian end up joining in for the Battle of Mos Espa against the invading Pyke Syndicate. Even Peli Motto, who's still heroic but much more morally gray, ends up joining in the battle without even knowing what's going on once she sees the Pykes are after her friends Din Djarin and Grogu.
- Parodied in the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch "The Pantomime Horse is a Secret Agent Film."
"My goodness me, it's the Duke of Kent to the rescue..."
- In Glee almost everyone in McKinley joins the glee club right before a competition so they have enough members to compete. In Season one, Jacob Ben Israel briefly joins to replace Finn, but he doesn't actually compete. In Season two, Lauren joins at Puck's persuasion. And in Season three, the band guys join right before Sectionals.
Video Games
- In the second part of the Ancient Gods expansion of Doom Eternal, as the Doom Slayer stares down the Dark Lord and his Legions of Hell at the city of Immora, several portals unexpectedly open up Avengers: Endgame style and an army of Night Sentinels led by Commander Valen arrive to combat Hell's forces.
- In Final Fantasy IV, the entire inactive party prays to revive the entire felled party at the end of the game, just prior to fighting the surprise final boss. And each member appears to say a line to the party in the process, to boot.
- Even dead party members show up to offer words of encouragement.
- EarthBound (1994) while fighting the Big Bad, the only way to beat him is to use the up until then useless skill "Pray," which causes all the NPCs in the world, plus the player, to pray together, which destroys the Big Bad.
- The citizens of Station Square did this in Sonic Adventure. Though how they were cheering, let alone alive, after the city had been destroyed is beyond anyone.
- Played literally in Castle Crashers where after you defeat the final boss, you and the princess ride on the crystal back to your castle. The final scene in the game before your princess turns out to be a clown, comes back to the party from the first scene only now filled with just about every character in the game, all having fun and drinking.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer has the final confrontation taking place in your own mind as it is being devoured by the Spirit-Eater curse, as you fight you call your allies and friends (some of which are dead) to assist you.
- Jade Empire won't let your party members join you in the final showdown, but they (those who remained loyal anyway) will help you take out the Big Bad 's minions.
- Majesty, you (as the sovereign) are not allowed to have certain groups, usually of warring religious factions, in your kingdom at the same time. However, in the final quest, as your kingdom's map gets filled out by exploring parties, they stumble across hidden pockets of every conceivable group of adventurers — all of whom promptly join in aiding you in the final battles against every villain you've encountered up to this point in the game. All the heroes versus all the villains, including the ones they already killed.
- At one point in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice a show of support from Mao's friends goes overboard into silly when every minor opponent up to that point shows up to lend their support.
- When you're facing down Feinne the World Eater in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters for the second time, after she's annihilated the town everyone laments how you cannot hope to defeat her power. Cue textbook The Cavalry moment as the knights of Raide and Christophe's mercenaries show up to lend their aid.
- Persona:
- Persona 4: Just as it seems like the Final Boss has done the heroes in for good, the Protagonist draws upon the power of his Social Links who appear before him and encourage him, which gives him the strength to pull a Heroic Second Wind, summon his Ultimate Persona, and wipe out the boss in one blow.
- Persona 5 does the same thing, but instead of it being just the Protagonist's social links, the entire city of Tokyo gets in on the action and cheers the party on.
Web Original
- Chapter 10 of Red vs. Blue: Revelation has just about every main character from the Red and Blue teams who had been split from the party return for an epic confrontation with yet another returning character, Tex. She then proceeds to lay an utter asskicking against every one of them.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender, when the Gang (not Gaang, as the Avatar himself was having a one on one battle with the Big Bad) shows up at Ba Sing Se looking for Iroh, they not only find him, they also find the rest of the White Lotus Society... which consists of all the great masters of the world that aren't directly loyal to the Fire Lord. Cue Curb-Stomp Battle against the occupying Fire Nation forces.
- The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh had the double-length episode "Un-Valentine's Day" which was the first and only episode of the series to feature every main cast member in a sizable speaking role. Usually, the focus is on just Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, and Gopher (and sometimes Eeyore, though he's usually Out of Focus compared to Gopher), with Kanga and Roo barely appearing and eventually being retired from the show altogether, and Owl, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin semi-frequently having a focus episode. But here, all characters appear with major roles.
- X-Men: Evolution had an epilogue that featured practically every character from the series who could conceivably join the X-men.
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- All of the villains on The Powerpuff Girls (1998) join the girls for the ending song at the end of "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey."
- "When I Yoo Hoo," a Merrie Melodies cartoon from 1936 about a cockfight in a rural mountain area, ends with the cheering sections of both roosters converging in the ring for a battle royale after the sheriff rules the bout a draw. The two roosters watch from the seats.
- At the end of the Disney cartoon Hockey Homicide, the hockey rink is littered with stray pucks, causing the already manic game to descend into utter chaos. The spectators end up going so berserk, they rush the ice and beat the crap out of each other, unaware that the players are now calmly watching the melee from the bleachers.
